Ras: Obama, Casey with 6-7 pt leads
Rasmussen Reports is the latest pollster to show Barack Obama with a lead over Mitt Romney in Pa, this time of 7 points. From the pollster:
President Obama now holds a six-point lead over Mitt Romney in Pennsylvania, a state considered essential to his reelection bid.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Keystone State shows the president with 47% support, while the putative Republican presidential nominee picks up 41% of the vote. Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The conservative-leaning pollster has a much different take on the Bob Casey/Tom Smith Senate race that what we've seen before, saying in that contest the incumbent Democrat is only up 7 points (at 48-41%), whereas the last PPP poll had Casey comfortably up 16 points.
The telephone polls of 500 likely voters were done Monday and has a 4.5% margin of error.
UPDATE: The Smith campaign is loving the Senate results. From the campaign:
"This most recent public poll clearly demonstrates a tightening race with growing momentum for Tom Smith," said Smith Campaign Manager Jim Conroy. "It's evident that voters are responding to Tom's message of job creation and fiscal restraint, while turning away from Senator Casey's record as a rubber stamp for the Obama Administration's massive spending and debt."
"While Senator Casey is well known by the electorate and failing to break 50%, nearly a third of the electorate has yet to formulate an opinion on Tom Smith," added Smith pollster John McLaughlin. "As Smith continues to increase his name identification the race will continue to tighten - this race is clearly winnable and will be close."
UPDATE 2: PoliticsPa has some interesting breakdowns from the Ras study (Smith leads with older and white voters) and more bad news for the Corbett admin -- the governor's approval rating is underwater, just as it was in the PPP poll (at 37/50%). From Keegan Gibson:
Rasmussen’s crosstabs, obtained by PoliticsPA, shows a few interesting trends. Casey leads decisively among voters under 40 (56 to 26 percent), African Americans (82 to 18 percent), self-described moderates (57 to 29 percent) and those with a household income over $100,000 (58 to 36 percent).
Smith leads among men (51 to 42 percent), voters ages 40-64 (48 to 44 percent), voters ages 65 and up (56 to 39 percent) and white voters (45 to 43 percent).
The two men are within the margin of error with voters whose an annual household income between $20,000 and $75,000.
Finally, Governor Corbett’s job approval is negative, 51 to 45 percent (12 percent strongly approve, 33 percent somewhat approve, 22 percent somewhat disapprove, and 29 percent strongly disapprove).